RWBY: Volume 4 Blu-ray Review

Ruby Rose has been traveling with Team JNPR since the Fall of Beacon and they’re on their way to Mistral. Remnant is still in a bit of disarray and enemies of our heroes are waiting to strike.

RWBY is a successful anime-styled web series with episodes that are brought to life through cell-shading. The series was created by Monty Oum and the team over at Rooster Teeth. They have also done some other animation series such as RED VS BLUE.

The series mixes a lot of classic ideas like edged weapons meshed with the projectile types of guns. For example, Ruby’s weapon named The Crescent Rose is a large scythe that doubles as a customizable highly impact sniper rifle. This weapon is what to expect from this world and animation lovers is general should be interested in this show.

VIDEO QUALITY:

The transfer is a 1080p AVC presentation that shines on Blu-ray. According to Rooster Teeth, they have stepped up their system hardware where they do the rendering for the series and this has made a definite change in the art. This season has both the cleanest and smoothest animation thus far. The first episode with the creatures rising out of the black really shows the evolution of the team working on the show. The coloring is brilliant and bold whether it’s in the character’s clothing or the settings with strong hues. If this is the caliber of what to expect from both Rooster Teeth and Cinedigm, then RWBY on Blu-ray will just get better from here.

AUDIO QUALITY:

The audio is a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that is the same as the DVD included with the release. I’ve mentioned on previous reviews of Rooster Teeth/Cinedigm releases have yet to bring their mixes to the HD realm with stronger audio codecs and I don’t know what the hesitation is. Effects and dialogue come through well but you can tell that there is so much more that they can give the fans. The layering of certain elements would also come through better with an HD mix.

SUPPLEMENTS & PACKAGING

-A Grimm Introduction: This is a featurette discussing with the crew about how they bring the many creatures from the show to life.

-RWBY 4 Production Diary: This has some interesting video of the Rooster Teeth headquarters and making the series.

-World of Remnant: These are a series of shorts, exploring points if interest in the show:
Kingdoms
Between Kingdoms
Faunus
Schnee Dust Company
The Great War

-CRWBY Photos

-Director Commentaries

-Crew Commentaries

-There is also a lenticular card of Ruby’s Crescent Rose showing that its also gun.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Rooster Teeth has created quite the world here and this is one of the best animation styles to bring it to life. The writing, choreographed fighting, and character design make it like a living comic book or go up against a lot of the anime out there. The Blu-ray has a strong video but I really was hoping for and HD audio mix. The extras are decent and give plenty of information. Overall, I can easily recommend this release to both fans and newbies to the series.

About the author

MEDIA JOURNALIST & STAFF WRITER | Michael is a fanatic about all cinema. He collects many things from movies to Steelbooks to 1/6 Scale Collectibles and vinyl collectibles. He loves pop culture, writing, reviewing films & collectibles, and journalism. Anything that is even slightly related to these things are always on his radar and most definitely a comic book nerd. He is also, of course, a Batman junkie and will chat it up about pretty much anything.

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